Neighbor Calls Evan Ebel ‘Wild, A Handful’

DENVER (CBS4)– A neighbor of Evan Ebel’s told CBS4 Thursday night that she remembered him “as a handful and a bit wild.”

Ebel has been identified by CBS4 sources as the suspect involved in a high speed chase and shootout in Texas that ended in a crash Thursday. Ebel, 28, was kept alive on life support for a few hours but has since been taken off and died.

Ebel was also thought to be connected to Tuesday’s murder of Tom Clements, the executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections. He may also be a suspect in the murder of a pizza delivery man.

Until about two years ago, Ebel’s father lived on Applewood Knolls Drive. He has since moved. He raised Evan and his sister as a single father.

But neighbor Vicky Bankey told CBS4 she remembered a teenaged Evan Ebel as having issues.

“He was sort of problematic,” said Bankey. I told my kids to stay clear of him. He did drugs.”

But she said that was not the worst of it, “One day he jumped off the roof of his house,” during his teenage years.

“We’d see him running around with his friends. I think he dropped out of school kind of young,” said Bankey.

Another neighbor Bill McGaughey called Ebel “pretty troubled.”

He said it was well known around the neighborhood that Ebel used drugs as a teenager.

Ebel’s father, Jack, is a well liked oil and gas attorney with an office in Lakewood.

Reached by phone by CBS4 Investigator Brian Maass Thursday night, Jack Ebel said, “I can’t talk right now. I know at some point I have to but not now.”

The family has suffered tragedy before. Marin Ebel, Evan’s only sibling, died in a car accident in 2004 when she was 16. She was a student at Wheat Ridge High School.

According to a family history obtained by CBS4, the family previously lived in the town of Morrison, near Red Rocks. The family says Evan worked one year at the well known Morrison Inn restaurant.

At some point, Ebel’s mother moved to Costa Rica for eight years. But she apparently moved back to Colorado recently writing that she was doing so in part, because her son was getting out of prison and she wanted to be there for him.